The Forgotten
by Arcaile63
Summary: The Chosen of Sylvarant embarks on the journey to regenerate the world, assisted by a professor, two school friends, a tough mercenary and his hyper apprentice. Written by me and Jae. Remember to R&R, and no flaming either!


Tales of Symphonia: The Forgotten

**Prologue: The Mercenaries**

"Owww... she didn't have to be so rough on us..." a young man clad in red muttered darkly.

"Oh come on Lloyd, it wasn't that bad. At least YOU didn't get... spanked..." came the response from a shorter boy.

Lloyd Irving smirked at the last comment made by his white (gray, silver?) haired friend, which earned him a cold glare, and a whack from a kendama in his face.

"Sigh... Let's just get back already, Colette asked us to stop by, remember?" the kendama swinging child mage said to his companion, only to find him clutching his face and lying on the floor and muttering something that sounded like "I'm gonna get you for this Genis!"

The two trudged down temple steps and headed towards the little village known as Iselia. Upon arriving, they immediately visited the house of Phaidra, one of the priestesses of the Church of Martel, and Colette's grandmother. Right before entering the house, Lloyd spotted something peculiar nearby in the street.

"Uhhh... Genis, what's that?" Lloyd motioned to the spot next to a small patch of grass.

Genis peered around his friend, and found a rather large, worn-out sack in the middle of the street. Which, coincidentally, just happened to be slowly _crawling_ towards the flower patch next to Colette's house. Their curiosity stirred, the two boys followed the moving sack with their eyes. Just as it reached the flowers, there was a tremendous "RAAAAAWRGGGG!" as something sprang out from the sack and pounced on the flowers.

Caught totally unaware, Lloyd and Genis jumped back in surprise. Unfortunately for them, they were standing on the steps in front of Colette's house, and ended up taking a rather painful fall. As they got up, accompanied by a nasty pain in their bottoms, they tried to get a better look at the thing that leapt out from the sack. Strangely enough, it wasn't there anymore. Although there were several butterflies scattered around the flowers, as if they were scared out of their wits and ended up fainting.

Still completely puzzled at what just happened, the two youths entered the house at last. There were already people engaged in deep conversation. Lloyd found his childhood friend Colette, her father Frank, Phaidra, and the mayor of the village. There was also the mercenary they had run into a while back at the temple, who went by the name of Kratos Aurion.

"Ohh, you're back! Thank you for your assistance earlier!" Phaidra exclaimed as she saw the boys enter.

"Thank you so much for your help earlier!" a young girl with long, platinum blonde hair said gratefully.

"Eh, it was nothing Colette. By the way, were you talking about the world regeneration journey just now?" Lloyd asked the little congregation.

As it turned out, the mayor and Kratos just agreed to Kratos, his partner and apprentice Erin Illiana, and Genis's sister, Raine (who was responsible for the spanking of Genis), acting as Colette's guardians in her journey to regenerate the world. The world they lived in, Sylvarant, was currently suffering from mana shortage, which led to unfortunate events such as droughts and famine. On top of that, a group of evil half-elves known as the Desians were tormenting the inhabitants of Slyvarant, forcing them into camps called "human ranches". What they did to those poor people there, nobody knew. Colette, who was the Chosen One, and also turned out to be the daughter of the angel Remiel, had to make a long and dangerous journey of regeneration in order to seal away the Desians and restore mana to the world.

"Hey, can I go too! I wanna see Colette regenerate the world!" Lloyd exclaimed.

"If my sister is going, then I want to go too!" Genis followed suit.

Their moment of jubilee was cut short by a blunt "No" from Kratos.

"Why!" Lloyd said indignantly.

Kratos launched into a rather harsh lecture of the dangers of the journey, stating quite plainly that "children need to stay home". To make it worse, the mayor also supported Kratos's view, much to the boys' chagrin. After the talk was done, the mayor stood up to leave. He bade the rest of the group good day and exited the house. Shortly after, there was an ear-piercing shriek that caused everyone except Kratos to jump.

"Wha, what was that?" Genis looked around wildly for the source of the scream.

"Don't mind that, that's just my partner. I'll have a word with her later." Kratos calmly replied.

"Partner? Oh, you mean that girl who was with you earlier?" Colette asked the mercenary.

"But... that sure did not sound like a girl to me..." Genis said thoughtfully.

"Hey guys, check this out." Lloyd said from the window. Colette and Genis peered out, and saw the mayor lying in the middle of the street, his face completely pale.

As they were wondering how the mayor ended up in that situation, the door opened as another guest entered. There stood a girl who was roughly around Lloyd's height. She had dark brown eyes, and her silver hair was rather wild, tied up into a single ponytail in the back. She wore long-sleeved white shirt the ended in blue rings at the sleeves, along with plain white pants. On top of that she wore a sleeveless dark blue garb that came down to her knees and had long slits on either side of her legs, fastened with a long, turquoise sash. Her boots were black and grayish and came close to her knees, and she also wore dark blue wrist bands and a silver (darker hue than her hair) headband. Overall, her attire was pretty plain.

"Erin... What did you do this time?" Kratos asked exasperated.

"Nothing." The girl replied innocently.

"'Nothing'? The mayor is out cold on the street!" Lloyd said in disbelief. In the meanwhile, the mayor was starting to attract a small crowd outside.

Kratos sighed and said in a more stern tone, "What did you do?"

"Eh, I was just playing with the butterflies, when that old man just kinda got in between us."

Genis stared at Erin as if he just ate his sister's cooking, "Playing? Wait, were you the one who went all 'rawrg!' out there?"

"Rawrg? I was just saying "nyah!" at the butterflies!" There was an awkward moment of silence, during which everyone except Erin, Kratos, and Colette exchanged a look of concern. Kratos merely sighed with a hand over his eyes.

Colette, on the other hand, had a big smile plastered on her face as she said, "Wow, you must be really connected with nature!"

This time, everyone (excluding the three from before) simply stared at Colette.

"Sometimes, I really worry about her, you know that?" Genis whispered to his friend, who nodded back in reply.

"Anyways, it's time for us to go now, we have to prepare for tomorrow's journey," and with that Kratos rose from his seat and more or less dragged Erin out of the house.

"Oooh! Oooh! Are we gonna have a big send-off party tonight! I'm starving already!" Kratos gave the others a look that seemed to say "Ignore her" as he left the house, the girl still blabbering without realizing what was going on.

After yet another moment of silence, Frank finally ushered the two boys back home. Genis, remembering that it was Colette's birthday, gave her his home-baked cookies. Lloyd, having forgotten about the whole thing, promised to finish the necklace he was going to make for her when he got home. Lloyd and Genis then said good-bye to Colette and her family as they headed for the village entrance, having to take the long way around the village center due to the crowd that formed around the still unconscious mayor. They stopped by Genis's house on the way, since Genis said he had something to bring along.

"Sheesh, if Kratos is a stuck-up jerk, then that Erin girl is just plain hyper. I mean, how in the world did those two partner up in the first place?" Lloyd began to say as the pair heard something that strangely sounded like "food!" from one of the houses.

Ignoring the faint voice they just heard, the two continued on until they found the village guards standing in front of the gate, looking like they were troubled by something. Upon getting closer, that "something" turned out to be a large green and white animal that vaguely resembled a huge dog, although it did have abnormally long ears.

"Noishe!" Lloyd rushed towards the strange beast, as it wagged its tail upon seeing the red clad boy.

One of the guard seemed somewhat relieved when he saw Lloyd coming. "Lloyd! Do something about this... thing, will you!"

"I told you, Noishe is a dog!" Lloyd said as he patted his pet, "Noishe, I told you that you can't be coming inside the village."

The large dog-thing whined sadly as its ears drooped, which earned Lloyd a scolding from his kendama wielding friend. After consoling his pet a bit, Lloyd Irving finally left the village and headed for his home, his friend Genis Sage tagging along for an unknown reason.

**Arcaile63: Wheee... one chapter down, who knows how many to go (and who knows if I will finish this, for that matter). I've been getting lazy with updates (seriously), so don't expect any quick updates. I'll try to make future chaps longer...  
**

**Jae: Heheh, finally started this fanfiction. Hope you enjoyed it! Erin is so... hyper... she is based off me. xP Anyways, if Arcaile63 decides to discontinue this fanfiction, I will pick it up. Hopefully with okay update rate - with 2,000 words at least in each!  
**

**Arcaile63/Jae: And now... R&R! (RRAAAAAAWRG!)  
**


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